Nearly One-Third of World’s Population Is Overweight

Schools around the world, like this one in Melilla, Uruguay, are trying to introduce healthy eating habits to bring down rates of obesity and overweight. Credit: Victoria Rodríguez/IPSBy Farangis AbdurazokzodaWASHINGTON , May 31 2014 (IPS) Over two billion people – or 30 percent of the world’s population – are either obese or overweight, and no country has successfully reduced obesity rates to date, according to a new study published this week by the British medical journal, The Lancet.
The number of overweight and obese people increased from 857 million in 1980 to 2.1 billion in 2013, according to the research, which was conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington and funded by the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation.
Titled “Global, regional, and national prevalence of overweight and obesity in children and adults during 1980-2013,” the study calls obesity a “major public health epidemic” in both the developed and the developing regions of the world.
An individual is considered to be overweight if he or she has a Body Mass Index (BMI), or weight-to-height ratio, greater than or equal to 25 and lower than 30, while obesity is defined as having BMI equal to or greater than 30.
“Obesity is an issue affecting people of all ages and incomes, everywhere,” said Dr. Christopher Murray, director of IHME and a co-founder of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study.
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Abstract
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